This invention relates generally to reflector-type antennas, and, more specifically, to software definable antennas capable of functioning across a wide range of frequency ranges and environmental conditions. This invention also relates to the testing, design, and fabrication of antenna reflectors.
That there is a clearly stated need for a software defined antenna system to pair with the growth in software based radios is well known across both government and industry. In order to gain the full benefit of these novel radios, flexible antenna hardware is urgently needed.
It is clearly desirable to provide geometrically flexible antenna hardware capable of functioning efficiently across a broad range of frequencies, signal types, and environmental conditions.
An optimal solution to the problem of building hardware functional across a wide bandwidth, with variable power transmit and receive, capable of functioning in degraded or cluttered environments, is a maximally adaptive radio system. The prior art has embarked upon a quest to engineer this very approach but while it has succeeded in building software defined (thus highly adaptive) radios, it has failed to generate an antenna system which would allow it to function to its full potential. Specifically, the prior art still utilizes standard hardware such as patch antennas, and therefore still unable to gain full usage from these novel software defined radio systems. Additionally, the majority of the explorations into the field of reconfigurable antennas have been at the lower end of the size and power scale, with minimal efforts into larger, higher power applications.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US20130265209 A1 to Brossier et al. discloses a Ku-band reconfigurable reflector-type antenna composed of a reflecting membrane connected to a rigid support via a series of actuators which deform the membrane to allow a variety of reflecting geometries. This system, however, is designed for low weight applications (notably spacecraft) and lacks the degree of versatility that software defined radios would necessarily require.